Okay, you wanna talk about alcohol? Let’s chat.

By Max Phillips, President of Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) Ōtepoti-Dunedin

Let’s start with some facts: 

In a sample of 1,540 Otago University students of any gender, 28% of the sample had experienced at least one form of sexual assault, 14.9% reported experiences that meet a definition of rape, of those 71.7% of victims and 62.1% of perpetrators were under the influence of alcohol at the time of the assault (Beres et al., 2020). 

‘Those who experience sexual assault while intoxicated are more likely to be distressed and blame themselves’. 

You could see why we (SSDP) might hate alcohol. But we don’t. We hate the alcohol companies who profit off it. We hate the complacent politicians who refuse to address the issues. We hate the lack of action which results in the perpetuation of harm to our community, our friends, our families, ourselves. We don’t want to stop you drinking, we want to stop people getting hurt.

Alcohol is Aotearoa’s most harmful Drug (yes, alcohol is a drug). In the New Zealand drug harms ranking study, alcohol was found to be the most harmful drug, to self, the community and overall (Crossin et al., 2023).

Figure 1 - Excerpt from Crossin et al. 2023 showing the harm rankings of use of various licit and illicit substances in Aotearoa New Zealand

Alcohol is a chemical and just like any other psychoactive drug it can have harmful effects on the human body. However, no drug, including alcohol, MDMA or even methamphetamine is inherently harmful. Drug related harm is a product of the context of the consumption. Fentanyl is regularly used in hospitals for the treatment of acute pain (it’s kinda mid tho tbh), but regardless, its use in medicine is considered a good thing. Yet in North America its killing people left right and centre. 

Opioids are a pretty good example of terrible drug policy, you’ve probably heard of the Sackler family (owners of Purdue pharma), who, in the early 2000s put profits of their fancy new drug Oxycontin above health outcomes of their patients and ultimately wound up causing an opioid epidemic. 

Profit over health? Yeah, the alcohol lobby does that too. Alcohol causes approximately 7.8 billion dollars’ worth of harm within Aotearoa per year, an annual deficit of more than 6 billion dollars, after the government rakes in a measly 1.2 billion dollars in alcohol sales tax (Nana, 2018). They don’t give a fuck about you. The alcohol lobby doesn’t care that their product is implicated in over 70% of university student sexual assaults (Beres et al., 2020) and as long as they keep making money, they’re gonna keep trying to gaslight you into thinking it was your fault. It wasn’t.

  The revenue of oxycontin lined the pockets of the Sackler family for some time, until it caused an opioid epidemic, that is currently killing tens of thousands of people each year in the United States alone. What the hell do we do about it? You treat drugs as a health issue, not something to sell. That’s what we want. Prohibition doesn’t work, governments have been trying that since the 70s and it has never and will never work. We believe in personal liberty of altered states, the consumption drugs should not be a crime.  

So how do you treat drugs as a health issue? Well, so basically, we need to burn capitalism to the ground and stitch neo-liberal mouths together. Black and free markets both put profit of drugs above health. Drug policy must prioritise evidence-based health outcomes, not the pockets of cartels, or the rich men who own alcohol companies. Centralising the sale of all drugs (including alcohol) into a safe legal regulated market means that the harms perpetuated by free and black markets are reduced, it also means funding can be redirected into the treatment of drug related harms, as well as initiatives and interventions to prevent harms or addictions. 

Figure 2 - Graph from the New Zealand Drug Foundation (NZDF 2017) showing the harm of various approaches to drug legislation.

But it’s not as simple as policy change, is it? 

Unfortunately, not. Fixing drug policy is one thing, but we still have to deal with stigma, culture and the other factors that result in drug related harm.  Okay, we hear you. The finest DnB ever mixed, a fruity 10 pack of RTDs and a blocked nose sure does make for a good night. But Otago University has a fucked-up party culture. It’s all fun and games, until campus watch must make yet another trip to the emergency room (which according to the Critic Te Ārohi editor is like half their job), until Te Whare Tāwharau books in another sexual assault victim, until Sophia Crestani died at the bottom of an overcrowded flat party. 

You can see why we might want to do something about the problems. You can see why we’d get frustrated at the lack of action from those in charge. The University of Otago set up the Sophia Charter in 2020 to address the issues in North Dunedin, but can anyone tell us what the Sophia Charter has accomplished? North Dunedin clean up? Makes for a nice puff piece The University of Otago can ride for brownie points, yet they won’t even hold naloxone, a safe, clinically effective, opioid overdose reversal medication that saves lives. Where are the student bars? Where is the commitment to ‘making a difference’?

Harm reduction is cool, we don’t want to take away your bevvies, we want supervised consumption sites (more student bars please) so that you can enjoy them in a safer environment. We want OUSA and the University of Otago to take responsibility for marketing alcohol to students. Sampling MajorMajor at tent city, before students have even had their first lecture is a fucked-up priority system. It spits on the face of any student who may have been hurt by alcohol, the campus watch team who deal with the broken glass around North Dunedin, the medical professionals who treat the injuries, assaults and health issues that our binge drinking culture creates. 

Were sick of this personal responsibility bullshit, looking at you Dave ‘culture change must be student led’ Scott, yeah okay culture change does need to come from the student contingent, here we are trying to do that, but how the fuck is that supposed to happen when alcohol marketing is happening on campus directly at the freshers? 

We want to have actual conversations about drugs (ill remind you for a third time, alcohol is a drug), the hard conversations, that actually address’ the shit that goes down. Conversations that don’t stigmatize people who consume drugs or alcohol but treats them with dignity and respect instead of calling them the problem. Conversations where evidence and harm reduction guide actions, rather than sitting by and letting it happen. 

We want our brand-new vice-chancellor Grant Robertson to prove his commitment to The Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Community Participation) Amendment Act 2023, which the Labour government pushed through under urgency last year. Did you mean it when you told parliament “Our communities can best articulate how alcohol affects them, their families and their whānau” Daddy Grant? Because here we are telling you, shits gotta fucking change. 

Fuck the alcohol lobbyists who profit from the harm, fuck the Sackler’s who profited from the harm, fuck the capitalists and neoliberals who perpetuate the harm, fuck the leaders who are ignoring the harm, fuck the politicians who don’t want to address the harm – and fuck that guy who took advantage of you when you were under the influence, he’s a dickhead too.

Max Phillips

President SSDP Ōtepoti-Dunedin

Students for Sensible Drug Policy Ōtepoti-Dunedin’s purpose and affiliation to Students for Sensible Drug Policy International’s mission statement as outlined in the Club Constitution:

Affiliation:

3.10 The Club shall remain aligned with the mission (3.10.1) and vision (3.10.2) of Students for Sensible Drug Policy International.

3.10.1 “Students for Sensible Drug Policy is an international grassroots network of students and young people, led by students and young people who are advocating for policy reform on the local, national, continental and global level. We promote youth civic engagement as a critical tool in reforming drug policy and develop leaders who advocate for change, based on justice, liberty and compassion. SSDP mobilizes and empowers young people to participate in political processes. Our members operate locally and are connected globally to reduce the harms of counterproductive policies–in particular, those that directly harm students of all ages and youth–and to represent the rights and interests of this population.”

3.10.2 “SSDP neither condones nor condemns drug use. We promote youth civic engagement as a critical tool in reforming drug policy and combating harms perpetuated by the war on drugs. SSDP respects our constituents' diverse experiences and identities and opposes the stigmatisation of people who use drugs. We develop leaders who advocate for policy changes based on justice, respect, compassion, evidence and human rights.”

Purpose:

4.1 The primary purpose of the Club is to reduce both drug harm and drug policy harm through education and through advocating for drug policy change in Aotearoa. SSDP offers a place to discuss drug policy, reform and consumption free from judgement and/or ridicule and respects a person’s choice to consume a drug regardless of its legal status. SSDP also actively engages in policy processes (alcohol licensing, submissions on legislation, endorsement of political candidates, etc.). This primary focus of this work will be within the Otago University and wider Otago community.

References:

Beres, M. A., Stojanov, Z., Graham, K., & Treharne, G. J. (2020). Sexual assault experiences of university students and disclosure to health professionals and others. New Zealand medical journal, 133(1523), 55-64.

Crossin, R., Cleland, L., Wilkins, C., Rychert, M., Adamson, S., Potiki, T., ... & Boden, J. (2023). The New Zealand drug harms ranking study: A multi-criteria decision analysis. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 37(9), 891-903.

Drug Foundation Staff. (2017, July 1). Moving to a healthy drug law by 2020. New Zealand Drug Foundation. March 11, 2024, https://drugfoundation.org.nz/articles/moving-to-a-healthy-drug-law-by-2020

Nana G (2018) Alcohol costs-but, who pays. In: Alcohol Action NZ Conference, Wellington, New Zealand.